


Hands Remember

by sleeprettydarling



Category: The Maze Runner (2014), The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Death Cure Spoilers, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-04
Updated: 2014-10-04
Packaged: 2018-02-19 19:21:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2399915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleeprettydarling/pseuds/sleeprettydarling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Do you think we could have known each other?  You know.  Before."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hands Remember

**Author's Note:**

> I was thinking about muscle memory, and somehow it turned into a fic. It's also somewhat inspired by a song of the same title, by Seabear. 
> 
> This is written out of order!! 
> 
> Also be warned for suicide references, and vague, blink-and-you-miss-it implications of self harm.

The night after Thomas escaped the Maze with Minho and Alby, Newt sought him out in the trees.  He looked strangely small, with his arms wrapped around himself, shoulders curled in.  Thomas couldn't make out his expression, but something inside him told him he should be able to read Newt like a book.  The thought made his chest ache. 

"I thought you were gone," Newt whispered, and suddenly it clicked.  This was the face of someone trying desperately to hold themselves together, to keep from shattering into a million pieces when, each time, it became a little harder to pick themselves up and carry on. 

Thomas pushed himself to his feet as Newt staggered forward, and Thomas caught him in his arms as if he'd done it a thousand times before.  He hugged Newt close, squeezing him against his chest, and he felt Newt's breath catch.  Newt didn't touch him, his arms still folded between them like a barrier, and it was torture. 

"I don't know… I don't know what I would've— _Tommy_." 

"Hey, it's okay."  Thomas kept his voice light, comforting; something about this seemed familiar, some vague alarm bell going off in the corner of his mind.  His fingers trailed up and down Newt's back, skimming over the bumps of his spine, squeezing the back of his neck.  "I'm like a cockroach.  You wouldn't be able to kill me even if you wanted to." 

Newt laughed damply, burrowing his face against the crook of Thomas's neck.  He could feel Newt's breath puffing against his skin, and when he closed his eyes, they were somewhere else.  It was impossible to know _where_ , but Thomas could almost hear computers humming in an empty room, could feel within himself the distant fear that someone might find them. 

Newt's arms snaked around his waist, clutching the sides of his shirt.  Thomas took the opportunity to hold him closer, their chests pressing together and hearts beating in near unison. 

When his eyes slid open, he realized how silly it all seemed.  They barely knew each other; Newt had no reason in the world to be this worked up over one close call.  Unless…

*** 

The first night, Thomas dreamt of hands. 

It was a dream that lingered as he slowly awoke, ghosts of fingertips against his shoulders, palms against his chest.  He reached out instinctively, his hand scrabbling along the ground— why was he on the ground?  Why was he alone? 

 _Of course_ , he chided himself.  He'd woken up alone every day for a long time now, because—

_Because._

It was all gone after that, forgotten as Newt's hand clamped over his mouth, forcing him awake.  There was a faint comfort in the feeling of long fingers pressed against cheek, and a rush of warmth smothered the oncoming panic.  Thomas relaxed, breathing out a sigh against skin that smelled of dirt and sweat and home. 

During the day, the dream returned only in fragmented glimpses, more feelings than actual imagery.  Always when he was with Newt. 

He'd look away when Newt caught him staring, something burning in his chest, his arms empty and cold. 

*** 

"Do you ever…"  Thomas hesitated, dampening his lips.  "Um, do you remember your dreams?"

"No, I — I don't know.  I try to forget."  Newt frowned, something faraway and sad behind his eyes.  His hand slid from Thomas's grasp, and something about it seemed so familiar.  Thomas's heart lurched, a prickle of panic forming at the base of his skull.  The feeling was gone as soon as it came and he took a breath to calm his racing heart. 

Newt offered him a wan smile.  "We all get nightmares.  You'll learn to block them out."  He stood, laying his hand on a tree to steady himself when his leg tried to give. 

Thomas sat up a little straighter, lifting his hands as if to reach for him.  Newt noticed the gesture and laughed, waving him off.  "Later, Tommy." 

He'd only made it a few steps when Thomas asked, "do you think we could have known each other?"  Newt froze, his spine going rigid.  "You know.  Before." 

Newt stood there for a long time, fists clenched at his sides.  When he spoke, his voice was brittle, and Thomas barely heard his answer:

_"Maybe."_

*** 

Thomas cried until his lungs hurt, until his eyes were sore and tired; cried until he'd run out of tears, and all he could do was cling to the person who held him.  He had a vague sense that this was backward.  He shouldn't be the one crying.  The person who soothed him shouldn't have to be the strong one. 

Fingers combed through his hair, long and delicate and soft.  They traced his temples, the line of his jaw, then slid back up and dragged through his hair once more. 

 _"Tommy."_  

_"It's all right."_

_"Wake up, Tommy, it's all right."_  

Thomas jerked awake, his lungs tight and empty, aching as if his heart had been yanked from his chest.  His cheeks were damp and his head was pounding.  Newt hovered beside him, hand in his hair. 

"There you are," Newt said softly, keeping his voice low even though they were alone in Thomas's spot in the forest.   "Another bad dream?" 

Thomas pushed himself up.  He could only stare at Newt, the pain in his chest urging him to reach out, to do _something_. 

"Um."  Newt shifted, retracting his hand, and Thomas felt a pang of loss.  "It wasn't about me again, was it?  It sounded like — maybe like you were saying my name." 

Thomas reached for Newt's hand; he couldn't help it.  He grabbed it almost forcefully, pulling it to his chest, clutching it like a lifeline.  Their fingers slid together like puzzle pieces.  Though Newt's hands were rough and weathered, his fingers still fit snugly between Thomas's, and it was like an awakening. 

"Tommy?"

Thomas stared down at their joined hands in fascination.  It didn't look quite right, not like he would have imagined.  His eyes slid closed and his hands understood.  His thumb knew to seek out the sensitive patch of skin at the junction of Newt's wrist, and he anticipated the shiver before it came.  Newt's grasp tightened, squeezing Thomas's hand against his own.

*** 

"Are you sick?"

Newt blinked up at him, brows knitted in confusion, eyes squinted against the sun.  "Am I—?  No.  At least, I bloody hope not."  He hesitated, his fingers going still against the twine he was lacing around a garden post.  "Why?" 

Thomas dragged his focus from Newt's fingers — he'd been watching them with a detached fascination for what felt like hours now.  Long, pale, and nimble, looping the twine around itself almost elegantly.  Thomas was supposed to be helping, but all he'd been able to think was that the string was too harsh for those hands, the skin rubbed raw, scars and calluses making rough, unfamiliar ridges. 

"I had a nightmare," Thomas admitted.  "About you.  I think." 

Newt sighed, going back to his work.  "Well, I'm quite all right, as you can see." 

Something in Thomas wanted to scream that he wasn't _'all right'_.  An uneasiness had been growing inside him since that morning, like he'd forgotten something important, something _disastrous_.  Newt seemed inexplicably fragile, suddenly; like a candle in the wind.  He shouldn't have to be here, Thomas knew that somehow.  It wasn't _fair_. 

"Anyway, that's bloody romantic of you, Tommy.  Do you dream of me often?" 

Judging by Newt's smirk, it was meant to be a joke.  But Thomas's heart skipped, his brain conjuring up a vague whisper of hands and huddled bodies.  "I think so," he answered, barely a whisper.  "I don't really remember, but…" 

The smile dropped from Newt's face, the twine slipping from his fingers.  "But what?" 

"Never mind."

Thomas left him there, a pale wisp in the afternoon sun, dread building inside him like an oncoming storm. 

***

After the Changing, Thomas dreamed of only the Flare.  He saw flashes of destruction, of suffering.  He saw WICKED rising from the ashes like a phoenix, offering hope, offering a _cure_. 

He saw a list. 

It contained names upon names, hundreds of them.  He couldn't make them out, his vision in the dream refusing to focus.  There was a voice, muffled and distant, explaining to him that these were the Immunes, that they held the key to the future. 

"On the back page," the voice said, "are the controls.  They're not immune, but will be participating in the trials regardless." 

Thomas would always wake up before he could turn the page, his throat tight and his heart pounding.  His hands would reach out in panic but there would be no one beside him, the moans of the Grievers outside the Homestead causing fear to spike through his veins. 

Newt was always nearby, on the bed, hand dangling over the side as if to be there if Thomas needed it. 

When Thomas would lace their fingers together, Newt would sometimes wake up just enough to offer a comforting squeeze.   

***

The second night, he dreamed about a body pressed against his own, his nose buried against a soft neck.  There had been fingers laced with his own, lax with sleep, and he'd awoken remembering the contentedness, the tinge of sorrow.

He didn't know if he was dreaming of anyone in particular, or if it was all just the wishful thinking of a lonely, broken mind.  He didn't know anything anymore, hadn't since he'd arrived in the Glade. 

Only one thing seemed to make sense, and that was the natural feeling of Newt walking at his side.  But even that seemed wrong, familiar but not quite, with the way Newt's limp caused his shoulder to bump into Thomas's. 

***

Newt took to sleeping beside Thomas in the forest, huddled against Thomas's chest.  It was strange at first.  Thomas's eyes told him he was snuggled up with someone he barely knew, and it made his skin prickle in a mix of apprehension and aversion, as if he were betraying someone important.  It seemed miraculous that Newt didn't push him away; Thomas woke up every morning surprised he hadn't turned away from Newt. 

Despite it all, his hands remembered.  They'd slide under Newt's shirt to be warmed by his back, his nails grazing Newt's neck and making him sigh.  He'd find Newt's scars and kiss them with his fingertips, seeking out the places that made the tension drain from his shoulders. 

In the early hours of the morning, when Thomas was stuck in the hazy limbo between dreams and reality, he could almost envision them in some kind of dormitory, pressed close together on a single bed that was too small for the both of them.  He'd wake up in a panic, and sometimes, his brain would stay stuck in that dormitory for just a second too long, and he'd tell Newt that he had to leave — quickly. 

Newt would smile at him sleepily in the purple light of dawn, and reach up to twist Thomas's hair around his finger.  "No one's coming.  Don't worry." 

Thomas would never be able to sleep after that.  He'd lie back down and watch Newt drift back to sleep, a hand resting on his chest to feel the steady rise and fall of his breaths.  Thomas would stay there, watching over him, until he was nearly running late.  No matter how carefully Thomas would pull away, Newt would somehow always be there to see him off at the doors.

Newt would never say anything, just stand there with his fists clenched against his sides, knuckles white with the strain. 

Every morning, Thomas told him the same thing: "I'll come back for you.  No matter what." 

*** 

Newt couldn't run for very long.  Thomas knew that even before the Changing; if Newt could manage it, he'd still be a Runner.  It was worse now, sensing Newt fall farther and farther to the back of the pack, until Thomas couldn't take it anymore and he gave the call for Minho to lead. 

Thomas slowed and let Newt catch up to him, his limp heavy, face pained.

"Go on," Newt urged, forcing a smile.  "I'll meet you at the Cliff."  It came out sounding more like a goodbye, and Thomas suddenly didn't care if all the Gladers turned around at once and saw them.  He took Newt's hand in his own, kissed his knuckles.

"I've got you.  Come on." 

They ran, hand in hand.  They were slower than the others, but Thomas helped him balance, kept their pace steady, until Newt had to shift and wrap his arm over Thomas's shoulders, keeping his weight off his leg entirely. 

But they made it, together, and that was really all that mattered. 

***

Dreams played behind his eyes like a fevered kaleidoscope in the agony of the Changing.  He remembered everything yet nothing at all; he screamed and fought against the hands that held him down. 

In a single flash of memory, too vivid to be real, Thomas remembered holding Newt in his arms, apologizing over and over and _over_ , even though he knew he'd get in trouble for it, but it suddenly didn't matter.  Newt's hand slid from his own, and he smiled, though his eyes were glassy.  "I won't make it without you.  You know that, right?"

Hands were on him within seconds, leading him down a hall, where Thomas knew he'd undergo the Swipe.  Then he'd be sent to the Maze, and Thomas would only ever see him again through the shaky camera of the Beetle Blades. 

"I'll be watching over you," he promised, frantic, tears pricking at his eyes.  He couldn't let them fall — for Newt's sake.  "I'll be here, no matter how bad it gets — I'll follow you.  I'll get you out.  One day, okay?" 

He remembered seeing Newt let go of the ivy, crashing hard against the floor of the Maze and going still.  Thomas had screamed at his monitor, the other Creators, begging them to bring Newt back, to treat his body and his mind.  The others waved it off, called it a good thing, an important step in their research.  Thomas spent the entire night screaming into the pillow that he imagined still smelled like the boy he'd once shared it with. 

It took a while before he realized he was screaming a word.

A name.

 _Newt_. 

"I'm here!  Tommy, I'm here." 

Thomas awoke in a slow, suffocating rush, like rising from the darkest part of the ocean to finally take a breath.  The first thing he focused on was Newt, leaning over him, glowing like a golden angel, his face pinched in worry. 

There were a million things Thomas wanted to say, wanted to do; his heart ached with the urge to take Newt into his arms and never let him go.  It was the first time since he'd arrived in the Glade that he didn't feel like he was looking at an acquaintance, the first time his dreams aligned with what he was seeing, and Thomas loved him.  He'd loved him since he was no more than a nameless test subject in a little white room, eyes empty with despair.    

Tears slid from the corners of his eyes and Newt wiped them away, his fingers soft against Thomas's face.  "Talk to me, Tommy, _please_.  Are you okay?" 

Thomas caught Newt's hand, holding it to his face.  "I know how to get you out of here," he whispered into Newt's palm, covering it with a kiss.  And maybe, for the first time in his life, he saw hope in Newt's eyes. 

***

"Do you still feel it?" Newt asked, quiet, his voice muffled against Thomas's shoulder.   

Thomas squeezed his eyes closed.  He didn't want to be in the Glade anymore — he'd never wanted to be there, but now the urge to escape burned stronger than ever.  Not just escape; he wanted to go back to where they were before, know the Newt that his body seemed to remember so fondly. 

"Yeah," he answered.  "Like you belong here."  His thumb dipped under the edge of Newt's shirt, sliding along the jut of his hipbone.  He didn't know what he was doing, exactly, until he traced over the raised edge of a scar.    

Newt pulled away enough to meet Thomas's eyes.  "I don't even remember where I got that bloody thing." 

Thomas shook his head in quiet amazement.  "But I knew it'd be here.  I mean, I didn't _know_ , but — I knew."  The movement had felt as natural as reaching for someone's hand, _knowing_ it'd be there, even without looking or thinking about it. 

Newt stared at him quizzically for a long moment, head tilted to the side.  "Sometimes," he started, careful and slow, "my dreams feel like memories.  Like someone's there, and I can't ever reach them, or see their face." 

"Yeah.  Me too." 

"When you came up in the Box, I kind of felt… _relieved_.  I don't think I recognized you, you didn't seem familiar, but you didn't seem new, either.  I remember thinking, ' _well, that explains the bloody dreams_ '."  Newt was staring, unfocused, at something over Thomas's shoulder, his brow furrowed in confusion.  "I spent all bloody day wondering where that thought came from, and I'd almost forgotten about it until you said you had dreams about me." 

Thomas's heart was racing, and it seemed that gravity drew him closer, letting their noses brush.  "Can I—?"

Newt jerked away — of course he did.  They were barely friends; Thomas had no business trying to kiss him, no matter what strange connection they seemed to share. 

Before Thomas could stutter out an apology, Newt sucked in a shuddering breath, and then his lips brushed hesitantly against Thomas's, once, twice, then a little more firmly, his hands trembling on Thomas's shoulders.  From there, Thomas seemed to lose control of his body, his hands rising to cradle Newt's face, his teeth nipping against Newt's lower lip in a way he _knew_ would make him laugh.  He could feel Newt's smile, a quiet chuckle gusting between their mouths, and his heart surged in triumph. 

It wasn't awkward, as Thomas somehow knew first kisses ought to be, especially with someone who was little more than a stranger.  It was like rereading his favorite book after putting away for too long — so right, so comfortable, but with so many forgotten details that Thomas couldn't wait to rediscover.  Newt's mouth opened under his as if to welcome him home, and _God_ , he still tasted the same.  Thomas didn't know how he knew, but he whimpered into Newt's mouth anyway, earning a peck at the corner of his lips and a hand through his hair. 

"Wherever we came from," Thomas whispered, lips brushing over Newt's cheek.  "I loved you.  I know I loved you."

"I think…  I think I might've loved you, too," Newt replied, barely a whisper.  But it was enough.

It would always be enough.    


End file.
